


on a wing and a prayer

by raumdeuter



Category: Football RPF, Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - Temeraire Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Ensemble Cast, Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-02-21 21:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2483408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raumdeuter/pseuds/raumdeuter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Of course the dragon won’t fit in the barn, and is like as not to die with those injuries. It’s a damned shame, of course, but what are we going to do about it? If that Frings fellow was right, the rest of the formation will be along in the morning to pick up the corpse--”</p><p>“Thomas,” says Holger, faintly.</p><p>“He’s awake, isn’t he,” says Thomas. “And right behind me.”</p><p>“Might I trouble you for that cow?” says the dragon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Upper Bavaria, 1813._

 

“Careful,” says Holger. “You’ll startle it, and they say the injured ones will eat a man if they’re hungry enough.”

“So that explains why there are men hanging all over him like apples on a tree,” says Thomas, grinning at his own joke. “A snack for later, perhaps.”

“Maybe keep your mouth shut while you’re sneaking up on it, that’s all I’m saying.” Holger has a frown like a cat who’s just had its tail pulled; he turns it on Thomas now, and Thomas has to resist the urge to laugh.

“Stay back if you’re inclined to, but this one’s no Berchtesgaden feral. I’d wager he’s one of ours, now we’ve stopped making up to the French.”

“How can you tell it’s a him, anyway?” says Holger. But Thomas can see he’s just as curious to see what, precisely, has crashed into the Müllers’ old cow-pasture, and together they clamber over the shattered remains of the cattle-gate and toward the fallen dragon.

The pasture is barely recognizable now; deep furrows have been torn into the dirt, and everywhere there is the acrid scent of gunpowder and the foul stink of what must be the dragon’s blood. Of the cows themselves there is no sign, except for a lone heifer who must have broken a leg in her hurry to escape and is now lying a short distance away, lowing in distress. If his dear departed father could see this now, thinks Thomas, and grimaces involuntarily.

The fight that brought the dragon down must have been a hard one. Most of his crew is missing, along with the better part of his harness; the few bodies that remain are tangled, unmoving, in the oiled leather. Thomas, who has watched and loudly envied the aviators of Starnberg covert since childhood, finds he cannot recognize the dragon’s breed. A middleweight for certain, but mostly a pale brown color underneath the dirt and blood, nothing like Kaisermantel orange or Flechteneule green; and in any case the dragon’s build is all wrong for a Bavarian middleweight, closer to a racing-hound than an ox.

So it seems Thomas was wrong after all about his unexpected visitors belonging to the Bavarian Luftkorps; breed aside, he is close enough now to make out the crew’s uniforms, and they are all of them Prussian to a fault. Some, he realizes, are still wearing their helmets, horsehair plumes and all, and for a brief moment he entertains himself by wondering how they keep them on in midflight. Then Holger passes him at a jog, all his earlier hesitation gone, and Thomas looks closer: there are survivors trapped in the harness.

He can tell at once there is no helping the captain, a big dark-haired fellow, still strapped securely into place in front of the dragon’s wing-joints, who might have been handsome had half his face not been blown away by grapeshot. The fighting has come close enough to Weilheim in the last two months that Thomas has lost most of his squeamishness, but the sight of the dead captain gives him pause nonetheless, and his usual wisecrack dies immediately on his tongue. Of the crew who are left, three more are dead, one well on his way, and the remaining two are not much better: grim-lipped and suspicious, with a good helping of broken bones all around, and one of them reaches for his pistol when Holger makes to free his carabiners from the remains of the harness.

“Come now,” says Thomas, a corner of his mouth quirking up despite himself. “Be reasonable. As if French spies could fill out our lederhosen half so well.”

“Or wear them at all,” says the second man, grimacing: but the first lowers his pistol slowly, shaking his head.

“The boy’s right. They may be Bavarian, but at least they aren’t French.”

“Cold comfort, Fringser,” says his companion, but a warning look from the first man and he subsides.

In pain they might be, and annoyed about a forced landing in Bavaria besides, but they respond well enough to Thomas’s constant questioning, and it serves well enough to distract them from the pain as they awkwardly make the descent from dragonback. ‘Fringser,’ as it turns out, is a nickname; the man with the pistol is the first lieutenant, Torsten Frings, and the other survivor a rifleman by the name of Borowski, both with the Prussian Luftkorps, under Admiral Klinsmann’s command.

That gives Thomas pause; even here Klinsmann’s name is well-known, and the formations he commands equally so. For them to be so close is a little disconcerting: either the war is going very well indeed, or very badly.

“Ballack,” says Frings, as Holger carefully lowers him to the ground. His long brown hair is escaping from his queue, and his eyes are red-rimmed and circled with exhaustion. “Our captain. Is he--?”

Holger twists his lips and shakes his head. Borowski swears, furiously and vilely, but Frings says nothing at all, only closes his eyes and slowly exhales.

“Damned Italian raiding party,” he says, after a long moment, and his voice shakes a little. “That bastard Azzurro came at us out of nowhere: I should have known it’d be him. It always is.”

“Bad luck for us if they happened to follow you,” says Thomas, but Frings shakes his head.

“The rest of our formation must have led him off, though how they’ll find us now God only knows. It was dark when we were attacked. Poor old Miroslav; I suppose someone will have to tell him, when he wakes.”

Truth be told, Thomas has very nearly forgotten about the dragon altogether, which ought to be impossible: but this close, the great scaled bulk of him seems more like a mountain than a living, breathing creature. It is hard to tell what is injured, precisely, or to differentiate between dirt and dried blood, and even at this distance he can only barely see the dragon’s chest rise and fall as it draws in labored breath after breath.

Miroslav. So that is the dragon’s name; a bit foreign-sounding, Polish or Russian or something, but short enough to fit on a headstone, which he supposes is the important part.

“Do you think he will wake up?” he says, and regrets it immediately: the glares Frings and Borowski direct at him could melt steel. “Not that I expect he won’t: I mean to say, if there’s anything we can do--”

“We’ve been through worse,” says Borowski, still scowling fit to burst, though the effect is dampened somewhat by the fact that he is beginning to doze off. “We were at Jena together, and the long flight from Danzig after. This is nothing.”

“ _When_ he wakes up,” adds Frings sharply, “you give him whatever he asks for. Meat, water, beer, I don’t give a damn. The Luftkorps will see to it you’re repaid, when they find us.”

“I’m sure they will,” says Thomas drily, but the sarcasm in his voice appears to fly over the aviators’ heads: Frings only nods, once, and within seconds both aviators are fast asleep.

“You think we should leave them here?’ says Holger, after a moment. Thomas shrugs.

“Can’t think of anywhere to put them besides the barn, and we’ll have a devil of a time moving them when they can hardly stand on their own. I’ll find a blanket or two: no-one can say we weren’t being hospitable, at least.”

Holger hesitates, frowning a little, and then says, “Thomas--”

“Of course the dragon won’t fit in the barn, and is like as not to die with those injuries. It’s a damned shame, of course, but what are we going to do about it? If that Frings fellow was right, the rest of the formation will be along in the morning to pick up the corpse--”

“Thomas,” says Holger, faintly.

“He’s awake, isn’t he,” says Thomas. “And right behind me.”

“Might I trouble you for that cow?” says the dragon.

Thomas knows, of course, that dragons can speak; he is not some back-country rube, no matter what the Prussians might think. But he has never ventured close enough to Starnberg covert to hear them for himself: only seen the dragons fly overhead, calling to each other, or in earnest conversation with their captains, and heard the deep rumbling of their voices, too distant to make out properly. For some reason it has never occurred to him that dragons might have accents, like people, and yet this one does: an unmistakable trace of the Rhine in his quiet words, as obvious as Thomas’s own Bavarian.

“So that’s how it works in the Pfalz!” he says, turning to face the dragon properly and forcing a laugh. “Well, here in Bavaria, a man pays when he’s ruined another man’s field, and loosed all his prize cows besides--”

He pauses. Here is where anyone else might have interrupted, or lost their patience altogether; but the dragon only watches him calmly, as if waiting for him to finish. He has never seen a dragon’s eyes before: these are a curious grey-green color utterly at odds with the dragon’s drab coat, oddly piercing, and he finds himself struck dumb: unable, for once in his life, to finish a sentence properly.

“Oh, to the devil with it,” says Thomas, at last. “You might as well.”

The dragon moves like lightning, powerful legs tearing up the earth under him as he lunges forward, enormous jaws open wide. The injured heifer vanishes in a flash of teeth; Thomas whirls about in an attempt to follow the movement, speechless for the second time in as many seconds, as the dragon licks his bloodied chops with surprising fastidiousness, and falls asleep without uttering another word.

For a moment all is silent: even this noise could not have roused Frings and Borowski, who sleep on, utterly unaware. Thomas stares at Holger; Holger stares back, half amused, half terrified out of his mind.

“I’ll run and find help,” begins Holger, but Thomas shakes his head: he has never let anyone get the better of him before, and damned if he is going to start with some half-dead dragon.

“Not with your bad knee, you aren’t. Here, give me a hand: we had better get these fellows out of the pasture and into the barn after all. I don’t want to be the one scraping them off the ground if our new friend here rolls over. _Sakrament!_ Have you ever seen such an appetite!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Miro and Thomas have a proper conversation, with actual words, and then things go downhill from there.

When Miroslav wakes again he knows, with the unerring instinct that only comes with years of experience, that the worst has happened.  
  
He tries to rise, levering himself hard against the close-packed earth and stretching his wings wide, but the movement exhausts him almost at once and he collapses heavily to the ground, eyes drifting closed. For a moment he can only lie there, acutely aware of the absence of both his harness and the weight of his crew.  
  
They had landed near Starnberg covert, he remembers that much; he and Immanuelis had volunteered for the first patrol of the night. But his memories after that are brief and jagged, and confusingly linked: Lieutenant Friedrich shouting a warning; the dull roar of cannon over the lake, where no cannon had any right to be; the flags from Immanuelis’s back signaling the retreat. Above all he remembers the whistle of grapeshot, the white-hot lance of pain across his flank, and his captain’s voice, abruptly cut off.  
  
After that he does not care to remember any more, and he suspects there is precious little to remember, besides. He must have lost his senses entirely, or worse: it would take as much for him to fly blind for at least an hour, judging from the way his wing-joints ache and his lungs burn from the effort of breathing.  
  
 _Panicked_ , he thinks, disgusted, _as if you were the youngest in the formation and not the oldest: as if you have never lost a captain before._  
  
Slowly, reluctantly, he opens his eyes again: torn earth and a broken fence, and rolling hills in the distance, as far as he can see. At the very least he is not taken prisoner; and he remembers hearing Frings’s voice, and Borowski’s, and unfamiliar voices in drawling Bavarian, and he knows he must content himself with the thought that two of his crew are still alive, even if his captain is not. But that is a heavy thought to bear all the same, and he finds himself digging his claws into the earth under the force of the blow.  
  
He shakes himself with a halfhearted snort, raising his head. He will do himself no good, thinking about what might have been, when it is already far too late for that. Then a movement in the distance catches his eye, and he stops and stares in disbelief at the horizon: an enormous wooden keg appears to be rolling toward him, of its own accord, out of the rising mist.  
  
At first he wonders if he truly has lost his senses after all; perhaps Azzurro had hit him harder than he had thought. Then the keg rolls closer, and he spots the unruly head of hair peeking out from behind it, and remembers the farmboy from yesterday.  
  
“Decided to wake up, I see,” says the boy without preamble, as soon as he is within earshot. How he manages to move the keg at all is beyond Miroslav: his arms and legs are stick-thin and poke out at odd angles as he pushes, and yet somehow the barrel trundles along at an impressive if erratic rate. “I was going to bring you a cow for breakfast, but someone decided to set them all loose yesterday, so I thought: what’s the next best thing for an old soldier like you?”  
  
Miroslav only eyes him warily. The boy gives the keg one last gangling push, and it rocks gently to a halt beside the remains of the fence.  
  
“Weissbier,” he says, with evident satisfaction. “Your crew can make all the jokes they want: the two of them still drank half a keg between themselves, in the end.”  
  
His crew. Impossible to tell how many of them are still alive: if he was over the lake when his harness broke, some might have survived the fall. But that is too small a possibility for much comfort, and even the loss of a few is a few too many. The Luftkorps has been worn thin of late, pinned down as they are by French and Italian forces from both sides. They could have spared Captain Michael Ballack least of all: and if they had been more careful that night; if an entire formation had flown the first patrol—  
  
The boy’s voice interrupts his thoughts. “Well?” he demands, tapping the keg with a foot. “What’s the matter, have you hurt your jaw? You certainly didn’t have any problems with it yesterday, when you ate my last cow. She was my best, too, I’ll have you know, the Müllers’ pride and joy: we were going to take her to market next week.”  
  
But the boy—Müller, what an unremarkable name—is smiling a little, a devilish sort of light dancing in his eyes, and Miroslav gets the feeling he is trying to provoke some sort of reaction from him. For a moment he is tempted to prod back, as he usually would: most of the civilians the Luftkorps encounters are terrified of dragons to the point of speechlessness, and it strikes him as odd that a farmboy from the middle of nowhere is behaving in precisely the opposite fashion. Not even most aviators would dare the same.  
  
But the moment passes soon enough. He wants no part of it.  
  
“Someone must have taken off my harness,” he says, instead, with the unspoken words: _and the bodies of my crew_. “Was it you?”  
  
Müller shrugs in a movement that seems to require the use of his entire body. “So the creature speaks after all! Well, Holger hurt his knee a month ago, so he’s not about to go climbing around anything anytime soon, and I thought I might as well. Not that I would have needed the help, mind you; from what I heard, the Italians did most of the work for me already.”  
  
Miroslav remembers the sound of tearing leather, and Lieutenant Friedrich’s startled expression as he falls, sword still half-raised. It must show on his face, because Müller quickly adds, his voice a little more subdued: “We’ve put the bodies in the cellar, out of the sun. They should keep until the rest of your formation finds you.”  
  
Miroslav blinks, once, a little startled; it is an unusually kind gesture, for all the good it will do, and if Müller is telling the truth, it must have taken him a great deal of time.  
  
“That is unlikely,” Miroslav says, after a moment’s hesitation: he does not like to play the pessimist, but there is no sense in trying to hide from the truth. “We were attacked a considerable distance from here, and I doubt you know the way to the covert where we were stationed.”  
  
“What, Starnberg?” says Müller promptly.  
  
Miroslav twitches his tail once in surprise, and Müller grins. He grins like a hatchling trying to imitate a human, wide-eyed and toothy, utterly pleased with himself for having caught a dragon out.  
  
“Why do you think my family’s kept cows for generations on end?” he says. “It isn’t because we like the company, no matter what your Frings and Borowski will tell you. The covert’s always paid us good money for our cattle: enough to make the trip up to the lake worthwhile.”  
  
Before Miroslav can react, Müller reaches up and pats his nose: a quick, light gesture, there and gone before it has properly sunk in, and yet oddly reassuring for all that.  
  
“Drink up!” he says, still grinning. “We’ll have to hide you somewhere, of course, so it isn’t the Italians who land in my field next, but never fear: if your formation can’t find you, we’ll just as easily find them.”

 

\---

 

In the end it is Frings who makes the decision for all of them. Late that afternoon he takes a turn for the worse, and by sunset his fever is running so hot Thomas is almost certain he will not last the night.  
  
“He needs our dragon-surgeon,” says Borowski, as Thomas enters the barn with a fresh set of linens. At Thomas’s blank look, he adds, “He’ll be back at the covert: there isn’t an aviator in the formation who hasn’t been treated by him, one time or another. How far are we from Starnberg?”  
  
“Less than a day’s journey by foot for a man, if the cows are cooperative,” says Thomas. “Probably an hour or two at most by wing, but with your dragon injured as he is, I should think we had better err on the side of caution: four hours by foot, for him.”  
  
“Miro won’t care about that, if he thinks he might lose his lieutenant,” says Borowski. “I don’t like to fly at night, seeing what happened the last time we did, but it seems we may not have a choice.”  
  
Thomas considers the contents of the barn, frowning: leather from the horses’ bridles might be spared for a carrier of some sort for Frings, Borowski of course has his aviator’s harness, and Thomas supposes he can manage to stay on without one, if he is careful. It is not the length of the journey which gives him hesitation, only the nature of it. Borowski is right; there is precious little cover from here to Starnberg, and any man who has spent time around dragons knows French Fleurs-de-Nuit can see in the dark as well as anyone might see in the day.  
  
“But,” he says, after a moment, “it isn’t as if you are any safer here: anyone might see the the cow-pasture and know a dragon has come along, and I can hardly cover him up with a few boards and pretend he is another barn.”  
  
Borowski almost smiles. “How soon can you be ready to leave?”  
  
There is no time to tell Holger: Thomas leaves a scrawled note pinned to the inside of the barn door, and hopes his friend will see it in the morning, before the French or the Italians do. Then he scrambles to fill a knapsack with a few supplies before he and Borowski, with a great deal of swearing between them, help the half-delirious Frings to his feet.  
  
“The devil is that on your back?” demands Borowski, as they hobble out the door.  
  
“My grandfather’s musket,” says Thomas placidly. “Don’t insult it: it’s liable to take your head off if you do, and also probably everyone else’s.”  
  
Miroslav is dozing when they approach, his head hanging low to the ground, but one look at Frings and he snaps instantly awake.  
  
“You should have told me at once,” he says. Thomas cannot read the dragon’s expression, at least not precisely, but his tail is lashing sharply from side to side: a bad sign, if Thomas is any judge. Borowski has explained how promotion works in the Luftkorps, how Frings is next in line for the captaincy: but the lieutenant’s injuries are severe even without his fever, and the Luftkorps cannot afford to keep a dragon grounded for the months it will likely take him to recover.  
  
 _If he recovers,_ thinks Thomas. Aloud he says, “His fever worsened less than an hour ago. But you’re right: I should have said as much. Will you take us to Starnberg?”  
  
Miroslav grumbles, but he stays still as Borowski checks the makeshift bandages strapped across his flank, and as Thomas throws the carrier over his shoulders he cranes his neck down to speak quietly to Frings.  
  
Time is of the essence now; Thomas gives the leather straps of the carrier one last tug, then follows Borowski into Miroslav’s cupped claws without a moment’s hesitation. A dizzying rush; the feel of warm scales under his hands, like padded leather; and suddenly he finds himself positioned in front of the dragon’s wing-joints, Borowski just ahead of him. His head spins, and he puts out an arm to steady himself, nearly falling off in the process; Borowski half-turns in his seat, smiling a little.  
  
“Different view from up here, isn’t it?” he calls. “Better hold onto the harness: it’ll be tricky finding our way back to the covert if we lose you.”  
  
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, not having to pay me for my cows,” retorts Thomas, but he winds his hands into the leather anyway.  
  
Miroslav crouches then, at an unheard signal from Frings, and Thomas’s grip on the harness tightens instinctively. Then the great muscles tense, the wings snap out, and Thomas whoops as the ground falls away below them.  
  
It is a clear night, and the stars are out: Thomas can see for miles, the neighboring farms and the lights of distant Weilheim laid out like a map, and aware as he is of the gravity of the situation, he cannot hold back a wild-eyed laugh. The night air is bracing, the wind ruffling his already-tousled hair, and he, Thomas Müller, is riding a dragon. A dragon!  
  
Miroslav circles the farm once, evidently testing his recent injury, but if it affects his pace, Thomas cannot tell. He stares, entranced, at the wings spread wide on either side of him, like sails outlined by moonlight, and feels a grin spread across his face again.  
  
“Set a course for north-northeast,” he calls, doing his best to sound formal—and, he is certain, failing miserably. “The lake is closer to us than the town: if we follow the shoreline, we’ll be more likely to run into your formation.”  
  
Borowski checks his compass, but Miroslav is already turning, his pace never flagging, and soon even the lights of Weilheim have faded from view. Thomas’s initial enthusiasm has not faded in the slightest, but even he can see the sense in keeping quiet now. For a long while, the only sounds that reach his ears are the deep snap of Miroslav’s wings, like a heartbeat, steady and soothing, and his own murmured directions.  
  
It is harder work than he thought it would be; he remembers the way to Starnberg well, but only from the ground, and the moon provides only so much illumination to keep his bearings straight. Soon even the thrill of flight has faded enough for exhaustion to take hold, and almost an hour into their flight he drifts off to sleep, hands still tangled in the dragon-harness.  
  
He wakes to Borowski shaking him, and opens his mouth to demand an explanation, or apologize, or both; but one look from the rifleman and he clicks his jaw shut.  
  
“Wings to the south,” Borowski hisses. “We can’t make out what breed, and our signal-flags were lost in in the attack: they may think we mean to ambush them, and strike first.”  
  
“Can we outrun them?” Thomas whispers back, and Borowski makes a noncommittal noise.  
  
As if in response, Miroslav puts his head down and accelerates, every muscle straining with the effort. Thomas leans as far back as he can, staring into the darkness, but he can hardly see anything, nor hear any wings besides Miroslav’s own. Up ahead, Borowski is fumbling one-handed with his powder, cursing his broken arm; Thomas makes as if to assist him, but the rifleman only scowls and waves him off.  
  
“It is no good,” Miroslav says, after a moment. “They are gaining on us, and I cannot put a name to the wingbeat.”  
  
“Which means it isn’t German or French,” says Borowski. “Or English. Or Azzurro: that is something to be grateful for, at least.”  
  
“It could be one of his friends,” says Thomas, letting go of the harness for just long enough to unsling the musket from his shoulder. “Another patrol, looking for survivors—“  
  
He stops abruptly. He can see the dragon now, or at least the faint outline of it, just to their right, and steadily growing larger. Its flight pattern is strange, even he can see that now: oddly undulating, and a faint haze surrounds the blur of its wings, making it even harder to see. If it has signal-flags, they are too small to be visible; and in any case it is moving too quickly for its intention to be anything but unfriendly.  
  
A faint click up ahead: Borowski has laid his loaded rifle across his lap, his face grim. Thomas begins to load his own, but he has none of the practice Borowski has had; the powder blows into his face, making him cough and splutter, and when he looks up it is too late: the dragon is nearly upon them.  
  
Thomas has never been one to panic before, and he likes to think he does not panic now, but the fact remains that his hands shake a little as he moves to ram wadding and ball down the musket-barrel; and so when a wholly unexpected jet of white flame arcs from the other dragon’s mouth, he manages to drop both ramrod and musket, and leans over instinctively to catch them—  
  
In the distance he can hear Borowski shout a warning. His legs scrabble wildly for purchase as his hands close around the musket, but he has neither the balance nor the skill for it, and he can only clutch his musket to himself with all the force of instinct and stare, disbelieving, as he falls.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Arsenal contingent arrives.

He knows the feeling of men falling from his back: he would have known it even if it had not been burned anew into his memory mere days ago.

Miroslav tucks into a dive almost before Borowski opens his mouth, wings folded flat against his sides, eyes half-shut against the sudden increase in speed. Somewhere below him Müller is shouting in unintelligible Bavarian, more likely than not a neverending string of profanities, and at first Miroslav is baffled and a little annoyed—but then he realizes the boy may be cleverer than he seems: he is all but invisible in the darkness, but it is easy enough for Miroslav to hear where he is.

Still, he does not wish to risk hurting Müller by attempting to catch him with his claws, and he cannot help but be acutely aware of the dragon—the firebreather, of all things—at his back. At any moment he expects flames to rake his side, and he braces himself: he has never fought a firebreather before, but surely they can be held off, somehow, long enough for him to do something—anything.

But the attack does not come. Instead he feels a sharp rush of wind, and the dragon levels into the dive with him, so close he can smell brimstone: a middleweight, with flashes of white on its wings, wreathed in steam and spikes. Another wingbeat, and it passes him with barely a glance, all its attention fixed on the falling figure before it.

Miroslav has just enough time to wonder what the point of trying to kill a man who is already falling is before the other dragon twists oddly, its wings flaring out, and it slows to match Müller’s speed: then a figure hooked precariously on the dragon’s wing is reaching out, catching Müller by the arm, and pulling him to safety.

Borowski is swearing now in infuriated wonder, his words mostly lost to the wind, and Frings is tugging urgently on his carrying-harness, demanding to know what is going on. Far below, the dragon corkscrews upward, winging its way towards them. Miroslav catches a brief glimpse of enormous golden eyes, almost glowing in the moonlight, before a figure suddenly detaches itself from the shadows of the dragon’s back and shouts: “ _Psiakrew_ , Mirek, is that you?”

And the voice is deeper than he remembers it, but he remembers it all the same: unflaggingly enthusiastic, full of the sort of exuberant fearlessness that would lead a boy to sneak into a covert full of dragons at midnight, or a man to climb unharnessed onto a dragon’s wing to rescue a complete stranger.

“Łukasz,” says Miroslav, slowly, and as the other dragon turns in a lazy circle to glide toward the distant shore of Lake Starnberg, he shakes his head once, disbelieving, before he follows.

 

\---

 

“So,” says Thomas’s savior, a cheerful-looking Polish fellow by the name of Podolski, with a first lieutenant’s stripes and a grin as broad as his accent. “You’re a little old to be a midwingman, hey? What’s your story?”

Thomas is a little ashamed to admit he cannot answer: he is still reeling from the fall, his arms and legs still wobbly, and the roar of blood frighteningly loud in his head. The other man has the grace, at least, to look apologetic.

“I’m damned sorry about all that: we didn’t see a flag, and Mesut here said the other dragon’s wing-patterns were all wrong for a Prussian, so we thought it must be raiders like the last three times. Should’ve known he wouldn’t recognize Mirek flying injured, and without his crew besides: he hatched after Mirek’s formation left for Bavaria.”

“It’s been a few years, but we’d have recognized him in broad daylight,” says a lanky aviator perched by the dragon’s wing-joints: the captain, judging from the epaulette on his shoulder. “Damned odd of Ballack to fly unharnessed, though: he likes his rules and regulations.”

“Damned irresponsible, you mean, Merte,” says Podolski, without so much as a glance at his commanding officer: evidently the famed Prussian discipline only extends so far where the Luftkorps are concerned. “Where is the old bastard, anyway? I’ve a mind to show him the back of my hand for it.”

“Again,” says a voice from somewhere near the dragon’s tail, and Podolski scowls halfheartedly at the ripple of laughter that spreads through the crew.

“Ah,” says Thomas, weakly. “About that.”

By the time the lights of Starnberg covert come into view, Podolski’s smile has vanished entirely. The rest of the crew, for their parts, have fallen awkwardly silent; evidently they are not given overmuch to self-reflection, as a whole.

“The bastard,” says Podolski, heatedly, and the captain shakes his head, his expression grim.

“Hard luck for us,” he says.

“Harder luck for Mirek,” adds Podolski, and at Thomas’s questioning expression, adds, “Ballack wasn’t his first captain, thank God: I should have hated to be in your shoes, if he were.”

Thomas looks instinctively back: the night is as impenetrable as ever, but if he listens hard enough he can hear a second wingbeat in the distance, just a hair slower than Mesut’s.

One or two dragons raise their heads as they soar overhead, but for the most part the covert is oddly abandoned: there are more empty clearings than occupied ones. Mesut, for his part, seems perfectly happy with this arrangement; he chooses a spot some distance from the others, and shakes out his wings with every sign of satisfaction. An excited babble rises up from the few dragons present as Miroslav comes into view, but he shows no desire to land among them: a perfunctory nod as he passes by, and he comes to rest in the clearing beside Mesut.

Already more lights are flaring to life in the distance; Thomas can hear shouting, and the lowing of cattle. “Come on,” says Podolski, paying out the harness-line and giving him a light nudge, “let’s go pay our respects to Mirek,” and they slide down Mesut’s flank together.

It has been four hours at most since they set out from the farm, but it feels to Thomas as if he has not touched solid ground in years. Though he does not like to admit it, his ankle twinges and his legs shake abominably, and he finds himself having to lean on Podolski to stay upright. But he has barely taken two unsteady steps before a great shadow looms over them, and Miroslav is there.

“I thought I recognized your voice, Łukasz,” Miroslav says, and his voice is noticeably different: missing, Thomas thinks, a little of the weariness that has suffused it every time he has heard him speak before. “But how on earth did you come to be here?”

Podolski flashes his brilliant grin, snapping off a textbook salute. “I was assigned to Mesut as soon as he broke the shell: Mertesacker asked me to be his first. Admiral Wenger’s orders were to join up with Klinsmann’s forces as soon as we could. It is damned good to see you again, Mirek.”

“Indeed,” says Miroslav. Again the draconic countenance is difficult to read, even more so in the dark, but Thomas thinks he sees amusement lurking in the corners of his eyes. “Pray attempt to contain your excitement next time: I should like to escape with my wings unsinged. And you, Müller,” he adds, his expression sobering. “Are you at all hurt?”

Thomas pauses, taking stock of his own meager injuries: a scrape or two, and a dull throbbing in his ankle; he must have sprained it in the fall. But even admitting as much seems excessive; he finds himself loath to cause Miroslav more grief than he already has. Managing to fall off a dragon is excessively foolish by even his own standards, and in truth he is more rattled than anything else: a condition easily remedied by sleep, and perhaps a tot of rum, if it can be spared.

“Not as much as I would have been if I’d hit the ground,” he says cheerfully.

Miroslav does not look terribly convinced, but he has no time to press the matter further. A small crowd of aviators is running toward them now, led by an irritated-looking older man with a tousled mane of brown hair. Under his watchful eye, they surge about Miroslav, and in short order have carried off both Frings and Borowski.

“So there you are,” the man says briskly to Miroslav, once the crowd has thinned somewhat. “I should hope you know half your formation is scouring the countryside looking for you.”

Miroslav shifts uncomfortably as the few aviators who remain turn their attention to his wounded flank. “I wondered why I did not see Philippus or Immanuelis when I landed. Where is Admiral Klinsmann? I ought to make my report—”

“As should we,” adds Podolski.

“You can make it when Klinsmann returns, both of you,” says the man—the dragon-surgeon, from the look of things. “He went out with Löw on Hanseatus: there’s no telling when he’ll be back.”

“Both of them?” says Miroslav, his eyebrow ridges drawing together. “With our formation divided as it is? That was ill-advised.”

“It didn’t sound as if they had much choice; and in any case there’s not much you can do about it now. Better hold still: that cut needs bandaging. You too.” The man gestures at Thomas. “Mertesacker told me you’d taken a tumble; I had better have a look at you.”

“Pray do, Dr. Wohlfahrt,” says Miroslav. “He cannot be at all well.”

Thomas blinks, shaking his head. “On the contrary, there’s nothing on me to be hurt; and Podolski here did an admirable job of catching me, besides.”

“Yes,” says Podolski, grinning, “I did. Come off it, Mirek: I know that look, you oversized hen. You’d have reported him to Wohlfahrt if he’d so much as stubbed his toe.”

“Nevertheless,” begins Miroslav, his head rearing back slightly, but Thomas forestalls him.

“There’s nothing I need more than a full night’s sleep, or as much of the night as can be salvaged—” as if to prove his point, he drops unceremoniously onto Miroslav’s extended foreleg, prompting a startled twitch from the dragon— “which I’ve a mind to take right here and now. If you’ve no objections, gentlemen?”

Wohlfahrt, engrossed in examining Miroslav’s injury, does not respond. Podolski frowns a little, but says, “We can get a proper bed made up for you at the keep.”

Thomas shrugs, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back. “There’s little point, when I’ll be taking my leave in the morning: I have a full herd of cattle to track down, yet. Although I grant you there’s little point in trying, when I imagine most of them are halfway to Italy by now—”

“At the very least wait until Admiral Klinsmann has returned,” interrupts Miroslav. “If you cannot find all of your cows, it is only right that I reimburse you for the damage I have caused; and without my captain, I cannot pay you back directly.”

For some reason Thomas had pictured draconic bank accounts easier to manage, and separate from those of their captains; granted, it had always been the quartermaster who had paid his family for their cattle, before. But Miroslav makes a good point, for all that Thomas has already decided the entire business with the cows wasn’t entirely his fault. There is no denying he will need remuneration of some sort to recoup his losses, and he is not so proud that he will not take help where he can get it, in the middle of a war.

“We’ll feed you, too,” says Podolski, and that settles the matter entirely.

Thomas refuses the offer of a bed anyway, though Podolski offers again, as he and Wohlfahrt depart: the night is clear and mild, Miroslav’s foreleg warm at his back, and Miroslav himself, for whatever reason, has not objected.

“You may do whatever you like,” he says, when Thomas asks.

“Only say if you’d rather be alone,” says Thomas. “One assumes you have had better days, and I’m not so blind to my own faults I can’t admit you have tolerated my presence damnably well.”

Miroslav looks uncomfortable; Thomas finds he is disproportionately pleased at being able to tell. “I certainly did not mean for you to hurt yourself, in trying to help me,” he says at last. “And you _have_ helped me, and what remains of my crew, more than I can say.”

“So it’s a question of debt, is it?” says Thomas, and laughter bubbles out of him before he can think to stop it. “For god’s sake, it wasn’t your fault I fell off; not when I was the one who practically leapt off your back in pursuit of musket and powder like a ninny.”

“There is no denying that was rash of you,” says Miroslav, a trifle impatiently—good, thinks Thomas, better that than guilt— “and the matter of the ambush is one that ought to be discussed, in good time, but you ought not have been involved in the first place.”

“As if you could have stopped me from coming along!” Thomas resists the urge to laugh again, though it is a close thing, and he cannot fully keep the smile from his voice. “If you only knew how much I’d wished to be an aviator as a child! And now I’ve ridden a dragon, and fallen off one, and lived to tell the tale: I’ll be the talk of Weilheim for years. If anything, I’m the one in your debt, and not the other way round.”

“Müller,” says Miroslav, and stops.

“You may as well call me Thomas, by the by,” he says. “You’ve eaten my best cow; there’s no formality in that."

Miroslav hesitates, and for a long moment Thomas wonders if he has committed some unknown breach of draconic etiquette.

“Thomas, then,” says Miroslav, and looks down at him, grey-green eyes glowing faintly in the distant light. “Thank you; I should welcome the company.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News from the front.

“Well,” says Wohlfahrt the next morning, as he inspects the dressing on Miroslav’s flank, “it is no scratch, I will give you that, and you cannot have improved it at all, flying on it as you did: but I have seen a great deal worse. We ought to be grateful, considering the heavy losses you took.”

Miroslav holds as still as he can, though he cannot suppress a slight twitch of his tail as Wohlfahrt repacks the wound with charpie and some foul-smelling substance, the origins of which he is better off not considering. He had awoken at dawn to find that Thomas had wandered off, presumably in search of his promised breakfast; Wohlfahrt and his medical bag had appeared not long after. “What of Immanuelis and Coemgenus?”

“Better off than you: Coemgenus bore the brunt of the fire from Azzurro’s riflemen, and he complained like a great baby when we dug the musket-balls out, but he came to no real harm. Immanuelis’ losses were a little greater: some five or six of his crew were killed, and Draxler, his new second, badly hurt. Höwedes ordered him to stay behind, when the search-party for you was formed.” 

“I expect Draxler is displeased,” says Miroslav, and Wohlfahrt grunts in amusement.

“Rather have him up at the keep and complaining than out there and dead. He’ll be back on his feet by the time the search-party returns.”

“They are taking their time,” says Miroslav. It is an empty comment, and both of them know it: there is no point in sending up a flare and announcing the covert’s depleted state to all and sundry, when the search-party will return soon enough without it.

Still, their delay makes him uneasy. Schweinsteiger will have taken charge in Ballack’s absence, or at least his dragon will have, and Philippus is not one to have left the covert undefended for so long. Either they must have happened upon the Müller farm and worked it out for themselves, or else they must have decided to cut their losses; but in any case they ought to have returned by now: the sun is already well on its way past the horizon.

“Well,” says Wohlfahrt, “Mertesacker is seeing to the defense of the covert now, if the Italians wish to make a run at us again. Your job is to rest, and eat—I know damned well you don’t, as much as you ought.”

The cows the quartermaster brings in are fine ones, of that there is no doubt, but even as he eats Miroslav finds himself distracted. Were these Müller’s cows as well, he wonders, and will Müller find some way of charging him for them? Even as the thought occurs to him, he finds it needs no answering. Of course he would, Miroslav thinks wryly: and add the feed and the trip up to Starnberg to the bill, too.

Gradually he becomes aware that he is being watched, and turning finds himself face-to-face with Mesut, the firebreather from last night, who has poked his head over the line of trees separating their respective clearings.

Mesut stares at him unblinking for several long moments. Then he says, “I am very sorry about trying to flame you, last night.”

Miroslav inclines his head, waiting for an explanation; but the firebreather seems perfectly content to leave it at that, and instead tucks into his cow with every sign of relish. Miroslav watches him for a moment, considering, before he sets the remnants of his own cow down.

“Lieutenant Podolski told me you were until recently under Admiral Wenger’s command,” he says, and at Mesut’s slight nod, continues: “Why were you transferred here?”

“To fight,” says Mesut.

Miroslav pauses a moment longer, but Mesut has again occupied himself with his cow. “With which formation?” he prompts, again.

Mesut blinks up at him. “Yours: that is what my captain said.”

“He seems a very knowledgeable captain,” says Miroslav, and Mesut only nods, once, his expression as guarded as before.

Evidently he does not care for the details, or does not care to elaborate. Miroslav has never had the occasion to speak to a firebreather directly, but by all accounts they tend to run as hot-tempered as their flames; it is frightfully inconvenient to encounter the sole exception to the rule, when he carries information Miroslav should like to know, and a familiar face besides.

“And Lieutenant Podolski?” says Miroslav, carefully. “How are you finding him?”

“Oh, Lukas is a very good lieutenant,” says Mesut at once, “he is very cheerful, but he fights very hard: I have heard some people in the Luftkorps say he is a scrub, but I have never seen him behave like one, and I will flame anyone who says he is.”

Miroslav is a little taken aback by the monologue, delivered in the same even tone of voice, and containing more words in total than have been uttered by Mesut altogether previously. All the same, he cannot argue with the content, nor the spirit of the other dragon’s words, and he finds himself relaxing, a little.

“I am glad you think so,” he says, after a moment, and something in his tone must betray him, or else Mesut is more perceptive than he had initially thought, because the firebreather tilts his head, curious.

“He was on your crew when he was a hatchling, was he not?” he says.

“He was,” says Miroslav, and leaves it at that. He is not so petty he will hold a grudge against Mesut, as a younger dragon might, for taking one of his crew, but all the same he cannot help but think how fine it would have been, if Podolski were still grounded: he would have made a good captain, in Ballack’s place.

“Well,” says Mesut, “I will take very good care of him: you can be sure of that—here he is now, with my captain, and yours also,” and Miroslav turns to see Podolski and Mertesacker making their way toward him, with Müller close on their heels.

 

\---

 

“We were due to join up with this lot two days ago, but there’ve been raiders up and down the whole of Bavaria looking for us: I suppose news travels fast when there’s a firebreather around.” Podolski spreads his hands in an expansive gesture. “Too bad: I should have liked to see how Mesut fetches up against Azzurro.”

“We’ll get our chance soon enough,” says Mertesacker. “We haven’t seen the last of him, and in any case a dragon who has served alongside Flammes-de-Gloire will hardly be fazed by a Kazilik hatchling.”

Now that the imminent risk of death by falling is past, Thomas can gawk openly: the firebreather--Mesut--is a bright crimson middleweight, with broad bands of white furled along his wings like painted clouds. He peers down at Thomas, the same open curiosity in his enormous, wide-pupiled eyes, before he blinks once, owlishly, and turns back to his cow. Steam curls softly about the golden spines on his back as he moves, and Mertesacker grins when he notices Thomas staring.

“Hatched not a year ago, at Gelsenkirchen covert,” he offers, with no small amount of pride. “His egg came to us out of Istanbul, after the Russians knocked them about at Rousse.”

“Ah, well, I’d be even more impressed if I knew what any of that meant,” says Thomas, and Podolski laughs and claps him on the back.

“I like this one,” he says. “We ought to sign him up. What do you think?” This directed to Mesut, who has finished his cow and is fastidiously licking all traces of his meal from his claws.

“I think Miroslav will be cross at me for taking another member of his crew, even if he is too polite to say so,” says Mesut.

Thomas shakes his head, grinning. “I’m hardly a member of his crew, and Podolski here said it himself: I’m far too old to play at being a runner.”

Not that the thought has never crossed his mind: it was nearly every Weilheim boy’s dream to become an aviator, for all that their elders and betters had tried to dissuade them with lengthy sermons about the Luftkorps’ notoriously lax morals. No matter that he is a grown man now, and expected to be above such childish aspirations: having experienced the thrill of dragonflight once already, he suspects that it will be harder to give up than he likes.

Partly to distract himself from the idea, and partly out of genuine curiosity, he adds: “I expect Frings will be made captain?”

“Depends on Wohlfahrt’s verdict,” says Podolski. “If he’s to be grounded longer than a few weeks, they may have to reconsider. In the end, it’s Klinsi’s decision.”

“Admiral Klinsmann’s,” Mertesacker clarifies, with an amused glance in Podolski’s direction. “Though Ballack’s boots will be difficult to fill, no matter who steps in them: we may find ourselves with a new formation-leader, before long.”

“It didn’t sound as if you were terribly fond of him,” says Thomas to Podolski, who shrugs.

“I served under Ballack when I was a midwingman. I’ll be the first to say he could be a proper devil of a formation leader, but he was one of ours, and without him we wouldn’t have survived as long as we did.”

From there it is simple enough to put the pieces together: there was some question of authority, no doubt, culminating in Podolski’s striking a superior officer. A force as stretched thin as the Luftkorps could never have afforded the more punitive measures favored by the Armee or the Marine: the worst they could have done was relieve him of his duties and ground him until a more tolerant captain came along.

He seems to have found one in Mertesacker, at any rate: as he watches, the captain strides up to greet Mesut with a cheerful cuff about the nose, which is promptly rewarded with a snort and an enormous burst of steam. Some unspoken instinct draws Thomas’s gaze to the clearing beside Mesut’s; the surrounding trees hide the better part of Miroslav’s body from view, but the dragon looks deep in thought: occupied, no doubt, with the same question of leadership on everyone else’s minds.

“I wouldn’t worry about him, any rate,” says Podolski, more cheerfully. “Mirek’s been in the Luftkorps longer than anyone: he’ll be all right.”

Thomas opens his mouth to respond, but one of the ground-crew shouts something, and points: out over the lake a small dark shape is flying low and fast toward them, its wing-tips drawing thin furrows through the water.

 

\---

 

The courier beats its wings once, hard, as it crosses the shoreline, its pace never flagging, and by then both it and its rider are clearly recognizable to Miroslav: Philippus by the orange pattern across his wings, Schweinsteiger by the glint of sunlight on grey-blond hair.

The ground-crew are already massing as the dragon lands, but Schweinsteiger waves them off with a brief command. Philippus, for his part, twists his sinous neck up to look at Miroslav, his bright eyes considering.

“So you made it after all,” he says, sounding barely out of breath. “I am glad to see it; Admiral Klinsmann was near beside himself with worry.”

“I am sorry,” begins Miroslav, but Philippus cuts him short with a shake of his head.

“No time for that: it is just as well we were out looking for you, or we should never have run into the Italians.”

At once all the dragons and captains within earshot set up a clamor. At a word from Mertesacker Mesut sends a brief jet of flame into the sky above their heads, quieting the commotion somewhat, but even then the murmur of voices remains, thrumming low like a wire pulled taut.

“I had thought it was only raiders this far into Bavaria,” calls Podolski. Already the news has reached their neighbors; and the air is thick with the sound of crews being roused, the jangle of harness-buckles, and the clatter of munitions. “They told us the bulk of the force was still massed south of the border.”

“Well, bulk of the force or otherwise, there are two formations on our tail, one of them Azzurro,” Schweinsteiger shouts back, “and Manu and Kevin tied up with a third: you had better shape up quick.”

Another murmur sweeps through the assembling crew. Two formations means at least twelve dragons, all combat-size, middleweight or better: Azzurro’s formation alone has three heavyweights. As for the covert –

“The six cannons at the keep are maintained regularly, and can be brought into service without much trouble,” says Mertesacker. “It seems Klinsmann had five more flown down from Munich yesterday: they can cover the lake, if need be.”

Miroslav raises his head, considering. Cannon will only do so much against an invading force, particularly one trained in part by Napoleon’s dragons. Mesut and himself included, there are perhaps five combat-ready middleweights at the covert, and three couriers—then another two middleweights barely out of the shell: impossible to consider risking them.

Philippus’s voice breaks through his thoughts. “Bastian and I must away to Munich; Klinsmann and Löw must hear of this. Miro, will you take charge of the defense, until we return?”

It is a request he has been expecting, and a perfectly reasonable one, but Miroslav hesitates nonetheless. Philippus has ever had odd notions about dragons taking on the mantle of leadership, since the moment he broke the shell, and the ideas of that English-Chinese rabblerouser have only fueled his ambitions. Ballack—Ballack had been precisely the opposite, a captain after Frederick the Great’s own heart, with the sort of honest steadiness that had won him the respect of his equally steady troops. Of course he had trusted Miroslav’s advice above that of anyone on his crew, save perhaps Frings, but that had been different: there had certainly been little room in his worldview for anything more unconventional.

It is one thing for Philippus’ captain to permit him his impertinences. Schweinsteiger may be cut from the same cloth as Ballack, but he is clever enough to bend to a dragon he knows is cleverer still. But for a formation-leader’s dragon to take command, without the aid of the formation-leader—

“Of course he will,” says Thomas, and when Miroslav glances down at him, startled, he only offers his crooked dragonet’s grin and pats Miroslav’s foreleg. “You needn’t worry: I’ll look after the old warhorse, until you get back.”

Philippus regards Thomas for a long moment, his gaze calculating, before he looks to Miroslav for confirmation. At Miroslav’s slow nod something in his expression softens, and he looks minutely pleased; then he bows his own head once, sharply, and springs lightly into the air. A flutter of motion, a quick snap of wings: then both dragon and rider are gone, riding the long wind to Munich.


End file.
